Out-of-Body and Near-Death Experiences: Brain-State Phenomena or Glimpses of Immortality?

Michael N. Marsh

Abstract

Personalised accounts of out-of-body (OBE) and near-death (NDE) experiences are frequently interpreted as offering evidence for immortality and an afterlife. Since most OBE/NDE follow severe curtailments of cerebral circulation with loss of consciousness, the agonal brain supposedly permits ‘mind’, ‘soul’, or ‘consciousness’ to escape neural control and provide glimpses of the afterlife. This study looks at the work of five key writers who support this so-called ‘dying brain’ hypothesis. The author disagrees with such otherworldly mystical or psychical interpretations, ably demonstrating how t ... More

Personalised accounts of out-of-body (OBE) and near-death (NDE) experiences are frequently interpreted as offering evidence for immortality and an afterlife. Since most OBE/NDE follow severe curtailments of cerebral circulation with loss of consciousness, the agonal brain supposedly permits ‘mind’, ‘soul’, or ‘consciousness’ to escape neural control and provide glimpses of the afterlife. This study looks at the work of five key writers who support this so-called ‘dying brain’ hypothesis. The author disagrees with such otherworldly mystical or psychical interpretations, ably demonstrating how they are explicable in terms of brain neurophysiology and its neuropathological disturbances. The trust of this claim sees the recorded phenomenology as reflections of brains rapidly reawakening to full conscious-awareness, consistent with other reported phenomenologies attending recovery from antecedent states of unconsciousness: the ‘re-awakening brain’ hypothesis. From this basis, a re-classification of NDE into early and late phase sequences is given, thereby dismantling the untenable concepts of ‘core’ and ‘depth’ experiences. The book provides a detailed examination of the spiritual and quasi-religious overtones accorded OBE/NDE, highlighting their inconsistencies when compared with classical accounts of divine disclosure, and the eschatological precepts of resurrection belief as professed credally. In assessing the implications of anthropological, philosophical, and theological concepts of ‘personhood’ and ‘soul’ as arguments for personal survival after death, the author celebrates the role of conventional faith in appropriating the expectant biblical promises of a ‘New Creation’.

End Matter

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